The Wallsend Witches

Witches Sabbath by Goya

Wallsend is a small town in the North of England. It is easily overlooked – just another post industrial town that has lost its heavy industry and been taken over by call centres and service industry jobs. But Wallsend has a long history. The Roman’s called it Segedunum when they built their fort at the end of Hadrian’s Wall (end of the wall – Wallsend – get it?). Through the centuries farming gave way to salt panning, glass-making, coal mining and shipbuilding. For the Roman’s, Wallsend was the end of the world, the border between civilisation and barbarianism, and in such a place anything can happen.

Halloween seems an appropriate time to share one such dark tale – a tale of witchcraft and necromancy. The following extract is taken from the ‘Monthly Chronicle’ for April 1888 and it describes, in wonderfully florid Victorian prose, the supposed encounter between one of the famously colourful Deleval family and the infamous Wallsend Witches.

Witches at Wallsend.

The adventurer… is said to have been returning home from Newcastle after nightfall. When turning, up the road past Wallsend, at the foot of the eminence on which the old church stands, he was surprised to observe the interior of the edifice brilliantly lighted up. Being, of course, curious to know the cause of this untimely illumination, he rode to the gate of the burying-ground, left his horse in charge of a servant, and walked forward to a window, where, like Souter Johnnie’s drunken crony “Wow, he saw an unco sicht.”

Holy Cross 1813 (1)

Upon the communion table, at each corner of which was placed an inverted human skull containing some inflammable substance that burned brightly, he saw extended the body of a female, unconfined, and partly unrolled from the winding sheet, while around it, apparently occupied in the preparation of charms, sat a number of withered hags, one of whom was at that instant employed in cutting with a knife the left breast from the corpse. The beldam who operated as dissector, and who, with stubbly beard, ugly buck teeth, red fiery eyes, and withered, wrinkled skin, seemed the likest imaginable counterpart of one of Macbeth’s witches, handed the severed breast to one of the other hags, who went off with it in the direction of the belfry, where she was lost to sight. Delaval, who believed he saw before his eyes only a set of detestably wicked old women, fit to be burned at the stake for their dealings with the foul fiend, as well as for their desecration of the consecrated building, determined that he would make an effort to stop their proceedings. So he applied his strength to the door of the church, burst it open, and rushed in, to the utter consternation of the assembly. Each of the hags endeavoured to save herself by flight. Some climbed up to the roof, and took their departure through the openings in the belfry. Others managed to get out at the door or the windows. But Delaval succeeded in laying fast hold of the beldam in whose hand the knife still gleamed, and managed to tie her hands behind her back with his pocket handkerchief, in spite of her hard struggles and horrid curses.

When Delaval had taken a hasty look at these devilish preparations for love and hate, charms and incantations, he hastened off with his captive, and bound her on horseback behind the servant. He kept her securely until she could be brought to trial, whether at the assizes, the sessions, or the baron’s own court tradition sayeth not; but certain it is that she was fully convicted of being a witch, as well as a sacrilegious person, and sentenced to be burnt on the seashore in the vicinity of Seaton Delaval.

And now followed the most marvellous part of the story – so marvellous, indeed, that we must beg our readers to take it, as we ourselves do, with a grain of salt. When the sentence was about to be carried into execution, the witch requested to have the use of two new wooden dishes, which were forthwith procured from the neighbouring hamlet of Seaton Sluice. The wood and combustibles were then heaped on the sands, the culprit was placed thereon, the dishes were given to her, and fire was applied to the pile. As the smoke arose in dense columns around her, she placed a foot in each of the utensils, muttered a spell, cleared herself from the fastenings at the stake, and soared away on the sea-breeze like an eagle escaped from the hands of its captors. But when she had risen to a considerable height, one of the dishes which supported her lost its efficacy from having been, by the young person who procured them, dipped unthinkingly in pure fresh water; and so, after making several gyrations, the deluded follower of Satan fell to the ground. Without affording her another chance of escape, the beholders conveyed her back to the pile, where she perished amidst its flames.

Folklore or fact?

Sir Francis Blake Deleval, after Joshua Reynolds

OK – first things first – apologies to any real-life witches/pagans reading the above tale with its stereotypical hideous hag-like witches – history and folk-lore do tend to give witches a bad rap, I’m afraid!

It seems quite plain that unlike the historically attested Newcastle Witches the Wallsend Witches belong to folklore rather than fact. The tale as quoted above was reported in the Monthly Chronicle of 1888. The Monthly Chronicle cited the most famous teller of the tale as Sir Francis Blake Deleval (1727 -1771) although it notes that even in his day the tale was well established.

Sir Francis belonged to that family of originals, the Delevals, who seemed to easily attract tall tales and legends; and himself was famous amongst other things for accepting a bet to build a castle in a day – Deleval won the bet and Starlight Castle still stands in Holywell Dene, in ruins now, a testament to Deleval hubris. Sir Francis was also a noted theatrical and practical joker and one can imagine him regaling his drinking companions with a tale of supernatural derring-do accredited to one of his ancestors. He was also a bit of ladies man and the idea of scaring the petticoats off some of his fashionable lady friends might have also appealed to him!

Holy Cross Church, Wallsend

There are some obviously fantastical elements of the tale: the witch flying off on wooden plates – I mean, REALLY? I can just imagine a condemned witch about to be executed asking someone to just pop to the next village and get her some new tableware and some witch-finder general type just saying ‘righto pet, I send someone to Ye Olde Collectibles right away’…can’t you?)

However even the ‘historic’ elements of the tale seem suspect, as Alan Fryer points out in his article on the Wallsend Witches. It seems unlikely that even in an earlier age a Deleval would have had the legal remit to order a capital punishment on a witch. And of course, in the main, witches were hanged in England not burned. Perhaps it owes some of its embellishments to the tale of the Berwick Witches who were burned just across the border in 1590 – part of the confession of Agnes Sampson involved diabolical shenanigans in a church.

Holy Cross Church, Wallsend

Despite its historical implausibility, the tale of the Wallsend Witches stands out as a relic of a less industrialised and disenchanted age. An age where the Lord of the Manor was the dashing hero of the hour, upholder all things decent, and wicked witches practiced the dark arts in derelict churches and could make their escape on crockery – I leave the reader to judge which of these elements they think the most unlikely!

Holy Cross Church can be approached either from a neatly kept housing estate, or via the grounds of Wallsend Old Hall. The latter way offers the most interesting route, winding along the course of the burn, under a canopy of old trees, then up the steep steps, hemmed in by hawthorn and brambles, towards the old church itself. You can still find a riot of nature and wildlife following this track even so close to the heart of the town. It’s not difficult to imagine that to traverse it by moonlight with dark branches casting spidery fingers across your path, foxes barking in the undergrowth and perhaps a mysterious light up ahead…you might, perchance, meet with the Wallsend Witches.

Finally the first installment of the Freaky Folktales Collection!

I have been a keen follower of PJ Hodge’s excellent website Freaky Folktales for some time now. Many a lunch hour at work has been whiled away with some deliciously creepy offering from the Freaky Folktales Vaults – and I have been impatiently waiting for the collection to be published – and here it is – just in time for Halloween!

Ghosts and Other Supernatural Guests by PJ Hodge

Ghosts and other Supernatural Guests is a collection of twelve tales of terror and suspense. Ranging from intimate first person narratives, to the traditional omniscient narrator; each tale is wonderfully crafted, precise in language and detail and very much harking back to the classic age of the ghost story.

PJ Hodge invites you to step outside your everyday world with tales that subtly entice you into a more liminal world, a world where the veils between physical measurable reality and the unexplained are drawn back to reveal unsettling truths and the inescapable terrors of the great beyond.

The tales take their influence from local legend and folklore and history- PJ Hodge isn’t afraid to go out into the field to research his tales, and this lends them an authenticity and place that comes across very strongly in many of the tales. In fact he understands the importance of place and location in the ghost story – whether it is a haunted house or a haunted viaduct each of the locations are vividly and chillingly drawn.

The tales also hark back to the classic Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories of the likes of MR James and Sheridan le Fanu to name but two; I found that Walk with Me (to the Estuary) was a particularly atmospheric with a slowly building sense of menace and inescapable fate that felt very Jamesian in colour and tone. Of course taking the Edwardian and Victorian age as an influence also often allows for a certain element of arch parody of those more pompous and more assured times. This was particularly notable in the opening lines of The Haunted Cupboard which begins with a debate between two crusty gentleman at their club regarding the malignancy of Lucifer Matches! History is also a springboard into the supernatural, and the opening tale The Ghost Bureau takes as its influence the real-life (or should that be real-afterlife) Julia’s Bureau of WT Stead, nineteenth century journalist, spiritualist and all round eccentric.

The tales range from childhood adventures with a tragic twist (The Viaduct); the truly horrific spectre of The Flames of Stalbridge Manor; to the heartwarming A Tip of the Hat. This is a perfect book to read, by a crackling fire, in a lonely manor house, on a dark and stormy night – was that a tree-branch tapping on the window-pane..or could it be Ghosts and other Supernatural Guests……..!

Ghosts and other Supernatural Guests by PJ Hodge is available on Kindle from Amazon. The paperback will be available in November.

“It is actually possible to become amateurs in suffering. I have heard of men who have travelled into countries where horrible executions were to be daily witnessed, for the sake of that excitement which the sight of suffering never fails to give, from the spectacle of a tragedy, or an auto-da-fe, down to the writhings of the meanest reptile on whom you can inflict torture, and feel that torture is the result of your own power. It is a species of feeling of which we never can divest ourselves.” (1)

So wrote Charles Maturin in his 1820 novel Melmoth the Wanderer – and the inspiration for this insight into the darker side of human nature? George Selwyn (1719 -1791), heir to a fortune, kicked out of Oxford for Blasphemy, MP to a rotten borough (or two), rake, wit and notorious necrophile.

Drunken japes or bloody blasphemy?

George Selwyn, second son of a Gloucestershire gentleman farmer, was sent to Eton and Oxford as befitted his rank in society. Here he met his lifelong friend the renowned wit and inveterate letter-writer Horace Walpole. Although Horace Walpole would eventually become famous for his novel ‘The Castle of Otranto’ a novel that was the fore-runner of many a famous Gothic novel, at this early stage Selwyn seems to have had the edge on the darker-side of human nature.

In fact George’s Oxford career was cut rather short one drunken evening in July 1745. Having somehow successfully blagged a local silversmith into to handing over a sacred chalice that was being repaired for a church, George set out to parody the Christian Holy Communion. Gathering together his chums he filled the chalice with red wine and then “made signs as though he was blooding at one of his arms, did apply the neck of the bottle of wine into the said arm…”(2) Following this he uttered the blasphemous words “Drink this in remembrance of me.”(3)

In 1745 that was enough to have you drummed out of Oxford however drunk you claimed to be. Even pandering to the anti-Catholic feelings of the day – by claiming to have been mocking transubstantiation – did not save Selwyn’s university career. Not that he seemed to mind very much.

A Clubbable Man

In the eighteenth century it was important for a man to be ‘clubbable’. To be able to socialise amongst his peers with poise, elegance and wit. Despite, or perhaps because of, the somewhat sleepily affable persona that Selwyn exuded he was a hit. He soon became a well-known figure at clubs such as Brookes’ and White’s (White’s was so notorious for gambling that Hogarth satirised it as a club where if a man collapsed outside, his body would be dragged into the club so bets could be laid on whether he was dead or not). Like most of his peers he was a keen gambler (and the aforementioned wager would no doubt have appealed to Selwyn’s macabre side) and he also had a ready wit. His Bon Mots were the talk of the town, and many a time ‘Selwyn’s last‘ was recorded for posterity by Horace Walpole. One of my favourites is the following slightly saucy retort:

Princess Amellia, by Jean Baptiste Van Loo

“Asked if Princess Amelia would have a guard, he replied with some indelicacy ‘now and then one, I suppose'” (4)

Wraxall described his style as: “eyes turned up, his mouth set primly, a look almost of melancholy on his whole fact.” (5) One can just imagine this lugubrious delivery just adding to its comedic effect.

He didn’t just restrict his membership to the more usual gaming and drinking clubs. Selwyn was, according to Geoffrey Ashe, one of the fully paid up members of Sir Francis Dashwood’s Monks of Medmenham – otherwise know as the Hellfire Club. (Of which more in future posts).

Selwyn didn’t let his political career get in the way of pursuing his favourite pass-times – in fact in 40 years as an MP he is not credited with a single political speech and his main contribution seems to have been in amusing his fellow MPs by ‘Snoring in unison with Lord North’(6)

However witty his Bon Mots were, and however uneventful his political career was, George Selwyn has come down through posterity as a necrophile and the model (along with Algernon Swinburne) for Edmond De Goncourt’s ‘Gentleman Sadist’ in his novel La Faustin – why was this?

A connoisseur of the macabre

The idle prentice hanged at Tyburn by Hogarth.

It was an age when it was not unusual for people to look forward to attending public hangings (even children were hanged). So popular was this gruesome spectator sport that you could even buy premium ‘grandstand’ seats at Tyburn in the so-called ‘Mother Proctor’s Pews’ – Roy Porter notes that for the hanging of the infamous Lord Ferrers (no relation to Katherine Ferrers of Wicked Lady fame) the pews raked in £500 in profit. Yet despite this, George Selwyn’s well-known predilection for executions and death was considered somewhat extreme even in his own day – Walpole relates the following tale that illustrates Selwyn’s pre-eminence in the subject:

“[Selwyn] told him, as a most important communication, that Arthur Moore had had his coffin chained to that of his mistress. ‘Lord! how do you know?’ asked Horace. ‘Why, I saw them the other day in a vault at St. Giles’s.’ ‘Oh! Your servant, Mr. Selwyn,’ cried the man who showed the tombs at Westminster Abbey, ‘I expected to see you here the other day when the old Duke of Richmond’s body was taken up.'”

The Wharton’s, in their book ‘The Wits and Beaux of Society’, point out that Selwyn was in some ways a man of contradictions – one minute the toast of polite society with his bon mots, the next rooting about in coffins and extorting confessions from criminals remarking of him that: “George Augustus Selwyn famous for his wit, and notorious for his love of horrors”

Lord Lovat, image Wikimedia

This mixture of wit and gloom came to the fore following the execution of Lord Lovat the captured Jacobite rebel. Some ladies objected to his having witnessed the execution to which he replied:

“‘I made full amends, for I went to see it sewn on again.’ He had indeed done so, and given the company at the undertaker’s a touch of his favourite blasphemy, for when the man of coffins had done his work and laid the body in its box, Selwyn, imitating the voice of the Lord Chancellor at the trial, muttered, ‘My Lord Lovat, you may rise.'” (7)

Selwyn hated to miss an execution and often got friends to give him full reports of any that he was unable to attend – however he did have some scruples. On being asked why he did not attend the hanging of a criminal named Charles Fox (the same name as his friend the Whig statesman Charles James Fox) he is reported to have said:

“I make it a point never to attend rehearsals.” (OUCH!)

The most famous and likely apocryphal story attached to George Selwyn is that he was mistaken for an executioner on a busman’s holiday when he was spotted at the execution of Damiens in 1757. Damiens made a pretty feeble attempt on the life of King Louise XV of France and was sentenced to a gruesome death: torture with red-hot pincers before being slowly ripped limb from limb by horses. The whole process took hours (with the unfortunate Damiens being alive for a considerable part of it). A sentimental lady is reported to have objected to the barbarity of the proceedings – because the horses were whipped. Who said only the British are animal lovers!

Selwyn was spotted pushing his way to the front of the crowd to get a ringside view of the torture when a gentleman spotted him. He asked Selwyn if he was himself an executioner come to observe proceedings. Selwyn made the unforgettable reply:

“No Monsieur, I have not that honour: I am but an amateur”

Damiens before the judges. 18C via Wikimedia

For all of his charm, wit and affable nature, there is something chilling in his love of watching the suffering of others and in his fondness for watching corpses exhumed. It is likely that this particular story has simply attached itself to his legend (it is also told of others) and he was often the butt of fanciful tales spread about by his friends (and rivals) in wit. Lord Chesterfield and Sir Charles Hanbury Williams have been cited by the Wharton’s as possible sources of this tale, and of the rumour that Selwyn sometimes dressed as a woman in order to attend executions incognito. Nevertheless it does not seem too far out of character for Selwyn that – given the chance – his connoisseurs palate would not have relished such a scene of horror as presented by Damien.

A slightly more amusing anecdote has Lord Holland, on his death-bed, advising a servant that:

“If Mr. Selwyn calls, let him in: if I am alive I shall be very glad to see him, and if I am dead he will be very glad to see me.”

Sometimes his friends were able to use his love of the death-bed and corpses to their own ends – one story associated with Selwyn’s time at Whites Club relates to the election of Sheridan as a member. Selwyn did not want Sheridan, a mere theatrical, elected to a gentleman’s club. The only way to stop him repeatedly black-balling Sheridan was for Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, in cahoots with Charles Fox, to trick him out of the club with the promise of a juicy death-bed to attend!

The twilight years

Mie Mie by George Romney

Although friends such as Walpole, the Duke of Queensberry and Lord Carlisle seemed to have esteemed Selwyn and thought him of good heart despite his foibles, one of his passions might seem a little off-putting to the modern reader. Selwyn never married and claimed to have only slept with women seven times in his entire life, the last being when he was 29. Instead he transferred his affections to children.

Two little girls were the focus of his attention: Anne Coventry daughter of one of the beautiful Gunning sisters, and more lastingly Maria ‘Mie Mie’ Fagniani daughter of the high living Marchese Fagniani and the Duke of Queensberry. Despite there being no question that he was not the father, he was so obsessed with Mie Mie (right from her infancy) that he succeeded in persuading the Marchese to leave her child with him when she returned to the continent. By the late 1770’s she and Selwyn were embroiled in a bitter dispute over custody. Eventually Selwyn seems to have won and spent the rest of his life fussing over Mie Mie, despite her eventual disdain for him. In his will he left the girl £33,000 (which along with the £150,000 left to her by Queensberry made her a very eligible heiress).

George Selwyn was a feature in society long after it had come to view him as a bit of a relic. His good friend the Duke of Queensberry provides this description of him at a society dinner:

“George Selwyn, (who lived for society and continued in it till he looked really like the waxwork figure of a corpse)”

It seems a fitting epitaph for a man who loved death so much. Selwyn finally succumbed of that most upper class of diseases: Gout, in 1791.

George Selwyn, (standing), and friends by Henry Graves

George Selwyn’s legacy

George Selwyn was a wit and a necrophile. He didn’t participate in any major events, he was hardly a mover and a shaker. Nevertheless he did leave a legacy. A somewhat unenviable one, based on his love of the macabre and his membership of the notorious Hellfire Club. It is in literature that he is still remembered: from Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer, to Charles Johnstone’s Chrysal, Or the Adventures of a Guinea; to Edmond de Goncort’s La Faustin where he is fused with that other reputed sadist Algernon Swinburne. Although it is worth noting that despite selwyn’s love of torture and executions this seems to have been a voyeuristic pleasure, and though this does seem to qualify him as a sadist there is at least no evidence to suggest he was a sexual sadist. (Small mercies perhaps…?)

Whatever the modern take on George Selwyn, it is apparent that his willing embrace of the darker side of human nature holds an enduring fascination – whether we like to admit to ourselves or not.

I will leave the final words to a contemporary of Selwyn, a poet who thought that Selwyn would be a suitable successor for the Devil should Old Nick ever need a day off….

“The murmurs hush’d – the Herald straight proclaimed S-l-n the witty next in order name’d But he was gone to hear the dismal yells Of tortur’d ghost and suffering criminals. Tho’ summoned thrice, he chose not to return, Charmed to behold the crackling culprits burn With George all know ambition must give place When there’s an execution in place” (8)

Halloween a time for ghosts, ghouls and …..Cabaret!

I love Halloween and all things ghastly and ghoulish and I was looking about for something to get me in the Halloween mood when I came across Boulevard’s Halloween Show.

Boulevard is a cabaret show in Newcastle, and one of the best nights out in the Toon. A group of us decided to go to the Halloween show after having a stonking good time at a Broadway revue the troupe did a few months ago. OMG what a night! Almost everyone who goes to Boulevard spends the first few numbers getting over their initial sense of amazement that the cast are ALL men, yes, even Glinda the Good Witch (how pretty was she!)

Miss Rory

The evening is compered by the utterly divine Miss Rory, whose acid tongue lashes the audience one by one – no one is safe! Throughout the night Miss Rory keeps the audience in their place (which is clearly somewhere way beneath her glorious eminence!) and her acerbic repartee keeps everyone in stitches. The brave can even get a photo with Miss R if they dare!

The show opened with a barnstorming number from The Nightmare Before Christmas with lycra clad dancers prancing through the audience dressed to kill (literally!) The programme contained scenes from Chicago, the Rocky Horror Show (with the whole audience reciting every word along with the cast!), a stunning rendition of Michael Jackson’s Thriller topped off the Halloween element to the show.

The Grand Finale was a very very tongue in cheek (Tongue in butt-cheek at times I think!) but affectionate performance of The Wizard of Oz that had the whole audience buzzing.

Betty Legs Diamond as Dorothy

The utterly fabulous Betty Legs Diamond is the undoubted star of the show (I won’t be uncouth and mention the lady’s age – but high kicks and the caterpillar at her age – WOW!) Betty has a pretty impressive pedigree, she won the Carl Alan Best Theatre Coach/Choreographer 2011 Award Winner and has performed in the West End of London, in the Royal Variety Show (in front of the Queeg and Prince Phillis no less!) and was in Funny Girls show in Blackpool for many years.

This is a great night out: hilarious and entertaining and with great dancers and fabulous routines. Expect to be dancing in the aisle and singing until you are hoarse.

If there are any tickets left for the Halloween show (the night I went was a sell-out) you can buy them on the Boulevard website, otherwise you will just have to wait for the Christmas show!

The finest private tomb in the country

Hamilton Mausoleum, image by G Laird via Wikimedia Commons

By the side of Muir Street in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire stands an unusual building. Most visitors casually passing through Hamilton pay little attention to the Victorian domed structure which seems a little lonely, a little lost amidst a green park, flanked by an ice rink. On closer examination what is revealed is an incredible structure, an extraordinary piece of architecture, which possesses a fascinating history linked to one of the most decadent and notorious Scottish aristocratic families, the Dukes of Hamilton.

Ceiling and oculus of the Mausoleum, image by Miss Jessel edited by Lenora

In 1842, the fabulously eccentric 10th Duke of Hamilton, Alexander, decided that what he and his family deserved to reflect their glory and eminence was a mausoleum. Not any mausoleum, Alexander wanted the grandest money could buy. Drawing from his love of the classical world he commissioned the architect David Hamilton to design and build a Roman-styled domed structure of panelled masonry in the grounds of the now demolished Hamilton Palace. At some point along the way the building project was taken over by the architect David Bryce and the Scottish sculptor, Alexander Handyside Ritchie. In 1858, sixteen years after the work had started, the building was finally completed. Unfortunately this was too late for the duke who had died five years previous. So sadly the proud duke never lived to see his dream fulfilled.

The building stands at a height of 37 metres with massive bronze doors modelled on those of the Florence Baptistry. The floor itself is incredibly beautiful. Produced by the Edinburgh firm of Wallace and Whyte, it is made up of 10000 pieces of marble taken from 42 Italian quarries and arranged in a Winding Stair Pattern. The floor is believed to incorporate elements of masonic symbolism in its design. Despite being an airy building the architects cleverly installed under floor heating so that mourners would not suffer during the long Scottish winters. In order not to spoil the mausoleum’s serene image the chimney 200 yards long was laid underground with the smoke emerging from the top of the caretaker’s cottage. At the time the mausoleum was considered to be one of the finest private tombs in the country and as one journalist wrote,

“The Mausoleum is believed to be the most costly and magnificent temple for the reception of the dead anywhere in the world with the exception of the pyramids”1

Floor tiles, image by Miss Jessel edited by Lenora

Life, Death, Immortality

Death Mask, image by Miss Jessel edited by Lenora

The entire building is imbued with symbolic meaning. Carvings and architectural devices were designed to instil in the mourners/visitors a respect for the transient nature of life as well as displaying the duke’s love and knowledge of the ancient world. You enter the crypt via a central archway (the two either side are false entrances). Above these archways are three sculptures representing Life, Death and Immortality.

The head representing “Life” is garlanded with fruits and flowers, possibly embodying the life-giving force of nature. His face is lined with the cares and worries which life inflicts. Above him a clock hand points to noon representing the mid-point of his existence.

The head representing “Death” is crowned with poppies symbolising everlasting sleep. His finger is gently placed on his lips, asking for silence, his eyes are closed.

The head representing “Immortality” is beautiful. His face his unlined and above his brow are lilies and circles as well as a snake holding his tail in its mouth representing eternity. In the centre there is a delicate carving of a butterfly, the Greek symbol of immortality.

It is significant that the only way to enter the crypt is to pass under the head representing death. It is also unnerving that the bust of life is the most worn of the three sculptures whilst immortality looks like it has hardly been touched.

The Mausoleum Sentries

Sleeping Lion, image by Miss Jessel edited by Lenora

The entrance of the crypt is guarded by two lions. One sleeps whilst the other isawake, alert. The lions carved from a single block of sandstone are incredibly lifelike and beautiful. Some believe that one represents life and the other death whilst others say that one lion keeps a vigil while the other sleeps until it is his time to take over guard duty. Interestingly the sleeping lion lies with his claws extended. In general cats sleep with claws retracted, maybe the sculptor made a mistake, maybe the sleeping lion is not really sleeping, maybe he is just lulling us into a false sense of security, waiting to pounce.

An illustrious family

Below the chapel is a stone crypt with room for the remains of 28 members of the duke’s family. It is hard to believe that the Dukes of Hamilton buried in the crypt ever really laid in peace and repose. A number of them led interesting lives none more so that the 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th dukes.

The duelling duke

4th Duke duelling, public domain image via wikimedia

The 4th Duke of Hamilton, James had a way of courting bad press. Described as perpetually drunk, selfish, arrogant, a disaster and a “bone-headed wastrel”1. He was a leader of the Scottish National Party and a vocal opponent of Scotland’s union with England. In November 1712 he was killed in a duel which shocked polite society and changed the law. His adversary was Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun with whom he had for eleven years been embroiled in a bitter legal dispute over an inheritance. Both men had married nieces of the Earl of Macclesfield but on his deathbed the Earl named Mohun as sole heir. Hamilton disputed the validity of the confession and the credibility of one of the witnesses. Mohun himself was no saint, having already stood trial three times for murder. Finally emotions became so heated on both sides that they decided a duel was needed to settle the matter for once and for all. They met in Hyde Park along with their Seconds, George MacCartney and Colonel John Hamilton. In the event Hamilton killed Mohun who in turn severely wounded Hamilton. Furious MacCartney lunged at Hamilton, running him through with his sword. It is very likely that Colonel Hamilton in retaliation fought MacCartney as both men fled to the continent in fear of arrest. The duel had been so bloody that the government was persuaded to ban duels using swords in favour of pistols which inflicted less horrific injuries. The incident was immortalised by Thackeray in his novel “The History of Henry Esmond”.

A Curtain Ring Wedding

Elizabeth Gunning

The 6th Duke of Hamilton’s (another James) claim to notoriety was very different. He enters the history books as a womaniser and debaucher. On the 14 February 1752 he finally found a woman he could not have his wicked way with in the form of the Society Beauty, Elizabeth Gunning. Elizabeth was penniless but refused to give in to the duke’s demands without marriage. That same night at 12.30 he plucked a parson out of bed to perform the marriage, using a bed curtain ring as a wedding ring. Presumably at 2am he finally got the girl and she got her duke.

The Hamilton House Dance

8th Duke of Hamilton, public domain

Following in family tradition, Douglas, the 8th Duke of Hamilton was famous for his looks which he used to good effect as a womaniser. He inherited the title on his brother’s death in 1769. In April 1778 he married Elizabeth Anne Burrell, a match his family disapproved of as unequal. They had no children and were divorced after sixteen years possibly due to the duke’s numerous affairs primarily with the actress Mrs Esten and Frances Twysden, wife of the Earl of Eglinton, although the duchess was also rumoured to bed hop on occasion. Affairs were pretty much the norm amongst the upper classes but people were expected to behave discreetly, not so Hamilton. In fact Lady Eglinton actually asked her husband’s servant “if he would admit the Duke of Hamilton into her bedchamber”3. Loyally the servant refused. The dance the “Hamilton House” was named after the duke and duchess with the steps and numerous changes of partners symbolising their infidelities.

“The proudest man in England”

El Magnifico himself

The builder of the mausoleum, Alexander Douglas Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton was born on the 3rd October 1767. In 1806 he was appointed to the Privy Council, serving as Ambassador to the Court of St Petersburg and in 1836 became a Knight of the Garter. He was strongly involved with the Freemasons, serving as Grandmaster between 1820 and 1822 hence the masonic symbolism embedded in the mausoleum’s design (and the continued use of the building by the Freemasons today). In April 1810 he married Susan Euphemia Beckford. He was a famous dandy and Lord Lemington in his book “The Days of the Dandies” wrote “Never was such a magnifico as the 10th Duke”. Extremely proud of his ancestry, he was convinced he was heir to the Scottish crown. His inflated sense of his own importance resulted in him hiring his own hermit to adorn the grounds of Hamilton Palace. Increasingly eccentric as he grew older, he was affectionately called “El Magnifico” by the locals as he wandered around Hamilton wearing the Douglas tartan. He died at the age of 84 in London on the 18th August 1852. An obituary notice read

“With a great pre-disposition to over-estimate the importance of ancient birth…he was well deserved to be considered the proudest man in England.”4

A sarcophagus fit for a duke

Unlike his other relatives, the 10th Duke was not content to be buried in the crypt; instead he was laid to rest in the chapel in a sarcophagus. The story goes that whilst acting as a buyer for the British Museum, he ‘accidentally’ acquired a sarcophagus, not of an Egyptian of royal birth but of an ordinary citizen. The British Museum uninterested in the purchase allowed Hamilton to keep it. On his death and according to his wishes, the duke’s body was mummified and placed in the sarcophagus. It is not known how they managed to fit his body in the sarcophagus as the duke was eight inches taller than the original occupant but it has been suggested that his legs were rearranged with a sledge-hammer and bent under him. Unfortunately as the mausoleum had no roof, the duke had the ignominy of lying in state with building work going on around him. Probably not the grand exit the duke had envisaged for himself. Eventually his sarcophagus was placed on a black marble slab, resting in a grand manner as “El Magnifico” deserved.

The Whispering Wa’s

One unusual consequence of the design was the whispering wa’s or walls. Two people can stand at either end of the rotunda and have a whispered conversation that can’t be heard from another person standing only a couple of inches away. This together with the echo which lasting 15 seconds has been recorded as the longest lasting echo of any man-made structure in the world, made the building unusable as a chapel but perfect for concerts and brass bands.

A lasting testimony

Unfortunately due to subsidence and flooding all the bodies were removed and reburied in the 1920s, with the majority of them being interred down the road at Bent Cemetery. I think that the mausoleum is one of the most surprising, interesting and beautiful buildings I have ever visited. It stands testimony to the vision (and ego) of one man and the skills of others as well as being the only surviving reminder of one of the grandest estates in Britain.

An unexpected guest

The family had repaired to the dining room, the gathering was a sombre one on this day of mourning. As darkness gathered around the hall candles were lit, casting shadows on the dark panelling of the room, their dim flickering light seeming to accentuate the deepening gloom. As they sat down to their sad repast, Earl Mount Edgcumbe, seated at the head of the table, rose to his feet planning perhaps to say a few words about his beloved wife, Emma, so recently laid to rest in the family vault.

All eyes turned expectantly towards him, he stood slowly and composed himself to speak, seconds passed but no words came. His eyes grew wide and glassy, his mouth fell open in silent horror, slowly he raised his hand and indicated the source of his terror. As each head tremulously turned in the direction he indicated, the room fell into a deathly silence. Silence broken only by the sound of a delicate scratching – or was it tapping – coming from the window and the dark night beyond. There, standing in the moonlight wrapped in her shroud and pale as bone, stood Emma, Countess Mount Edgcumbe, returned from the grave.

This is my terribly hammy horror pastiche of part of the tale of unfortunate Emma, Countess Mount Edgcumbe. Emma married the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe in 1761 and legend says she was the victim of premature burial. The story recounts that Emma died and was sealed up in the family vault at Maker Church, however a rapacious sexton had spied a rather valuable ring that he quite took a shine too. Returning to the cover of darkness to retrieve the treasure, he unscrewed the Countess’s coffin and proceeded to pull the ring off her finger but found that it was stuck fast, nipping her finger rather hard he was horrified to find the ‘corpse’ suddenly sat up and asked where she was. Understandably the Sexton left in a hurry (never to be seen again, one suspects) leaving the befuddled Emma, wrapped only in her burial shroud, to walk the half mile or so back to the old ancestral pile. To this day the Mount Edgecumbe Estate has a ‘Countess’s Path’ commemorating Emma’s journey back to the land of the living – and to her startled family. She died more permanently in 1807.

The lady with the ring

Image from Derby Museum collection via Wikimedia

But is it true? The story is current in the Devon/Cornwall area and was passed down the generations of the Mount Edgcumbe family. However the whole story fits the popular folk-lore associated with tales of The Lady with the Ring rather too neatly. The earlier tales include that of Frau Reichmuth Adolch in sixteenth century Germany and other English variants such as Lady Wyndham. These tales are common across Europe and found as far afield as North America. Usual features are: the ring, the sexton and the moonlit walk from the burial ground, and the family mistaking the returned lady for a ghost (1). The tales would seem to say more about our primal fear of premature burial than of actual events as virtually none can be proven beyond doubt. Besides, if the tale of Emma is true then the Mount Edgcumbe family seem particularly unfortunate in this respect as in the preceding century another Countess Mount Edgcumbe, Anne, was said also to have suffered this fate!

Taphophobia

The Word comes from the Greek ‘fear of graves’ and describes a pathological fear of being buried alive and this fear may represent one of mankind’s most primeval fears. From ancient times, people have told terrifying tales of those who were buried before life had expired. Inspiring one seventeenth century poet to write:

“Wisely they leave graves open for the dead‘Cos some to early are brought to bed.” (2)

So why is the fear of premature burial so common? How likely is premature burial? And what can be done to avoid it? Such questions plagued writers, doctors and plenty of ordinary people in the 18th and 19th Centuries. It inspired literature (particularly Edgar Allen Poe: The Premature Burial and Ligeia and features in various other tales); it led to changes in the law surrounding burial; to ingenious methods of prevention and to vital scientific enquiry.

True Tales of premature burial?

Stories of ‘True’ premature burials abound. One of the earliest was recorded by Pliny the Elder in the 1st Century AD, he recounted the tale of Consul Acilius who awoke with a scream as his funeral pyre began to burn; Thomas A’Kempis who died in 1471 was a candidate for canonisation until his coffin was opened and his corpse was found with splinters under the fingernails; apparently it wasn’t seemly for a potential saint to wish to postpone meeting his god! Many other such tales were regularly recounted, both as oral traditions (such as the tale of Emma) and in newspapers and even medical journals such as the Lancet.

The Premature Burial, 1854, by Antoine Wiertz

Other evidence cited to support the prevalence of premature burial was found when Les Innocents Cemetery in Paris was moved, many skeletons were found to have shifted position in their coffins. Cases where coffins had been opened to find corpses with bitten fingers, scratches and looks of horror on their faces all added to the popular fear. A famous case reported in 1901 involved the pregnant Madame Bobin who ‘died’ of Yellow Fever on her return from Africa. Her maid doubted the diagnosis and with the help of Madame Bobin’s father opened the coffin to find that the woman had turned over in her coffin and given birth to a foetus.

Add to this the regular outbreaks of contagious diseases such as Cholera, where corpses had to be despatched quickly and often without being viewed by a doctor, and the fear of going early into the grave was intensified.

Mortae Incertae Signa

Skull and crossbones, image by Lenora

The main problem seems to have been that despite that fact that people had been dying for simply ages, know one was actually sure how to tell if someone was not just a bit dead, but really dead. This was first explored in ‘Mortae Incertae Signa’ (Uncertain Signs of Death) by Jaques Benigne Winslow in 1742.

This study which began to explore the problems surrounding identifying the ‘moment’ of death in amongst the process of dying resulted in changes in the law in some countries to reduce the chances of premature burial. However, in hot countries burial remained of necessity swift (Petrarch the famous poet, was himself almost buried alive in Florence in the fourteenth century, after falling into a trance).

Robert Wilkins in his wonderfully macabre and entertaining book ‘The Fireside Book of Death’ notes lists the signs of death as: insensibility, temperature, respiration, circulation, rigor mortis and putrefaction. However relying on one of these features alone would not necessarily signify death – catalepsy might result in insensibility, coma patients are often cool to the touch (whilst Cholera victims might have a high temperature); the heart continues to beat for a time even after decapitation. Wilkins also notes that in fact some of the signs of death might actually have been seen as signs of burial alive.

When death mimics life

Wilkins notes that much of the supporting evidence for burial alive can be dismissed as the natural actions of the corpse: cries for help become post-mortem belches, nibbled fingers and scratched faces are likely the result of ravenous rodents, bodies found outside coffins most likely blew themselves up as their gasses fermented – the strength of such gas could easily force a foetus from a womb and anguished expressions are caused by the muscle contractions of rigor mortis.

But of course for many centuries this was not know and the actual diagnosis of death was a very sketchy business and not even always carried out by a medical doctor (it was not always a legal requirement for a doctor to even view a corpse before certifying a death).

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were up to 30 different theories about how to definitively tell if a person was dead. So much was this fundamental issue on medical minds that in 1837 a prize was set up for anyone who could establish death with any certainty. In 1846 Eugene Bouchut won 1500 francs for suggested the use of the newly invented stethoscope – if the heartbeat was absent for 2 minutes then death was certain…strangely nobody had thought of this before. Then in 1885 one Dr Maze suggested that the only certain sign of death was putrefaction….he was not the first to think this. As early as 1788 Dr Joseph Frank had suggested keeping bodies 2 -3 days before burial and by 1792 the ‘Vitae Dubiae Asylum’ – The ‘hospital for doubtful life’ was set up in Weimar, Germany.

Waiting Mortuaries

For those concerned by the prospect of premature burial, Germany in the nineteenth century was probably the best place to expire. Waiting Mortuaries were particularly popular in Germany lasting until the 1880’s. Munich had several such establishments, Munich Leichenhaus, where corpses of the newly departed were laid out until putrefaction set in. They were displayed in zinc trays filled with antiseptic and decorated with scented flowers and could be visited by relatives keen to ensure that the dearly departed really were dead before they were interred. Of course there were class distinctions even in death – with a luxury section for the exclusive use of the wealthy departed!

New York Bellevue Morgue, public domain image.

The Morgues were staffed 24 hours a day and each body was cunningly rigged up so that the slightest movement would trigger a bell. After a mid-century Cholera epidemic it became compulsory for bodies to be taken to these mortuaries(3). Nevertheless, it is unknown if these precautions actually saved anyone – the QI website claims that between 1822 -1845 46500 people were taken to waiting mortuaries but none found to be living.

In fact, despite researchers such as Franz Hartmann collecting above 700 ‘true’ cases of premature burial in his much derided 1895 book, much of the medical establishment remained highly skeptical about the chances of it actually happening. Dr Brouardel in his 1902 work ‘Death and Sudden Death’ was particularly dismissive of the claims that up to a third of people may have been buried prior to true death. Too many of the tales simply could not be verified or could be explained away by natural processes of decay.

Nevertheless, it pays to be on the safe side….

5 Tips on how not to be buried alive

Alice Eve, buried alive in James McTeigue’s 2012 film The Raven.

1. Join a premature burial society – no, not one that encourages it, one that tries to prevent it. In 1896 the slightly unscrupulous Arthur Lovell set up the London Society for the Prevention of Premature Burial. For a fee members were guaranteed a thorough going over by ‘experts’ upon their demise. Wilkins’ notes that it was not only their bodies that would receive a thorough going over – if family members failed to notify the society of the death of a member, the departed’s entire estate was forfeited to them!

2. Seek proper medical advice. Many of the cases of premature burial stem from untrained persons misdiagnosing death, doctors not necessarily being present. Even doctors are not infallible – why not choose one with access to a Necrometer? This handy device can tell even the most recently qualified medical person whether a patient is: alive, nearly dead, or completely dead.

3. Make sure you are really dead. You can do this in a number of ways – both Wilkie Collins and Hans Christian Anderson carried around detailed instructions about this. Grimaldi the famous clown went to the extreme of insisting on a post-mortem decapitation, so did Harriet Martineau the Victorian Author. She also went a step further and declared if her wishes were not carried out her bequests would be null and void.

4. Try not to die in a hot country – hot countries tend to prefer swift burial for hygienic reasons as the unfortunate Dr Chew found out. In 1874 Dr Chew ‘died’ in Calcutta where burial was usually within 24 hours. But for his observant sister spotting some movement at the 20th hour, he would have met a grisly fate.

5. Invest in a safety coffin. In 1893 the nervous John Wilmer of Stoke Newington set up an elaborate home-made alarm system. Buried in his garden, a switch was placed in his hand so that should he awake underground he could ring a bell in his house.

The most famous safety coffin was that designed in 1896 by the wonderfully named Count Karnice-Karnicki Chancellor to the Tsar of Russia. For the reasonable fee of 12 shillings you could rent his device – a tube running from the coffin to an airtight box above ground. A glass sphere on the chest could detect the tiniest movement which would then set off a spring mechanism to open the tube to let and air and light. The tube would also amplify cries for help – which would either bring swift assistance or scare the bejesus out of any passersby.

More up to date safety coffins are now available, courtesy of Fabrizio Caselli whose 1995 design included an alarm, intercom, breathing apparatus and a flash-light. If you want to be really cutting edge, more contemporary designs now include mobile phones and computer games to while away the dull hours before rescue arrives.

Premature Burial Vault, Image source wikimedia

A final word…

If you think that the chance of premature burial is a thing of the past, think on this recent ‘near miss’ reported in the Daily Mail:

“…Maureen Jones, a 65-year-old grandmother from Yorkshire, who collapsed at home in 1996.

Her son called the GP, who decided that she had suffered a stroke and was dead. The undertakers were about to put her in a hearse when a policeman noticed her leg twitch and at once performed heart massage. Mrs Jones’s eyelids began fluttering and she opened her eyes.

She had been in a diabetic coma. She recovered, but four years later she was still having nightmares about being buried alive.” (4)

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I totally love Nadine Ducca’s debut novel and as I am a bit pushed for time this week, I thought I would be lazy and reblog the review I wrote for http://www.ingridhall.com while I am putting together my next blog post! Enjoy!